News Features

Procter speaks to great plains vegetable growers conference

On Jan. 12 David Procter, the director of the Center for Engagement and Community
Development (CECD), presented "The Rural Grocery Store Initiative" at the 2008 Great
Plains Vegetable Growers Conference in St. Joseph, Missouri. This regional conference
attracted nearly 400 local food and flower growers, food distributors, sustainable
farmers, and university extension staff from Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa and
Oklahoma.

Dr. Procter outlined the rural grocery store initiative organized by CECD, the USDA
Rural Development Office, the Kansas Sampler Foundation, the Huck Boyd National Institute
for Rural Development and K-State's Department of Agricultural Economics.

Procter spoke about the importance of sustaining rural grocery stores in an era of
big box stores and convenient, low-cost shopping patterns. Procter emphasized how
these grocery stores remain vitally important for economic development, community
development and public health. He pointed out that rural areas are becoming "food
deserts" — geographic areas of the state where nutritious and fresh foods are unavailable
— and that the young, poor, and elderly are impacted most negatively by a lack of
local grocery options.

Procter pointed out that local growers could be an important part of a community sustainability
effort. Procter and conference attendees talked together about how local growers might
work in partnership with rural groceries to make local foods and products available
while at the same time helping sustain local grocery stores.